Wilbekin after the 73:96 to Barcelona: “We had a great first half and a bad second half. We let the game slip away from us”. Sfairopoulos: “We’ll have to learn a lot from this game”
Maccabi Fox Tel Aviv ended its road trip with a 96:73 loss to Barcelona, going back home with a 6:4 record. The Yellow & Blue head back home as they’ll face Hapoel Jerusalem for a cup contest on Monday night and host Asvel Villeurbanne on Thursday.
Tyler Dorsey led Maccabi’s scorers with 15 points, John DiBartolomeo generated 13 of his own, and Scottie Wilbekin that came into the game questionable ended the night with 11 points and 4 rebounds.
“We will need to learn a lot from this game because we need to know how to stay focused for all 40 minutes – especially against teams like Barcelona”, Told coach Giannis Sfairopoulos at the annual post-game press conference. “Today, we had two different halves. In the first one, we were really focused, determined, and we stuck to the game plan offensively and defensively. We didn’t let Barcelona run into fastbreaks, and the way we played in the first half that was how we planned it. The second half was completely different, we allowed them to score 31 points in the third quarter, and we weren’t tough on the defensive end”.
“We had a good first half and a bad second half, we let the game get away from us”, Summarized Scottie Wilbekin after the defeat. “We got to put this (game) behind us and get focused on Jerusalem, it’s a totally different type of game, and we got to be ready to play our best”.
“It’s a severe loss, Barcelona is a good veteran team that knows what they want to do on the court”, Said Deni Avdija. “We were good until the start of the second half, then they hit shots, and we started to panic, but we had to continue to fight until the end. We have another important matchup this time against Jerusalem, we need to lift our head and keep on playing our game”.
